A man who faces 54 charges in a series of home invasions while he snuck back and forth across the Canadian border —including one that ended in murder — is scheduled for his next court date in Montreal this week.

A warrant to arrest Septimus Neverson, 54, was first issued on Oct. 23, 2014, but the Montreal police kept a tight lid on the information while asking authorities in Trinidad and Tobago to arrest the man they suspect was behind 13 home invasions carried out between 2006 and 2009. One of the break-ins resulted in the death of Jacques Sénécal, an artist who was fatally shot inside his home in Laval on July 20, 2006.

Four days before Sénécal was killed, someone shot a LaSalle businessman inside his home and left him wounded. Neverson is charged with attempted murder in that case. He also faces two other counts of attempted murder related to home invasions he is alleged to have carried out in 2009.

March 2015: Septimus Neverson was arrested in Trinidad and Tobago. He is accused of engaging in home invasions in Montreal and Laval.SPVM /
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Neverson was arrested, on Feb. 25, 2015, in Trinidad and Tobago, and the Montreal police divulged details of their investigation a couple of weeks later. The Canadian government requested Neverson’s extradition, and he was finally brought to Montreal on Sept. 30, and made a brief appearance before a Quebec Court judge the following day. He has been detained ever since and is scheduled to have his next court date on Tuesday.

When the Montreal police made public some of the details of the investigation, in March 2015, they revealed they have evidence that Neverson entered Canada illegally before allegedly carrying out nine home invasions in 2006 and then returned to Trinidad and Tobago. He entered Canada again before allegedly carrying out four more home invasions in 2009. He managed to enter the country illegally, at least twice, despite having been removed from Canada, in 2000, after having been convicted for killing a person during a home invasion he carried out in 1987.

According to a decision made by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) in 2000 — while Canada sought to have Neverson deported — his first entry into Canada was as a visitor, in June 1985, and he spent more time behind bars over the next 15 years than he did as a free man. A deportation order was issued in 1991, but at the time Neverson was still before the courts on charges related to man he killed in 1987. The case required three trials, and on Nov. 6, 1998, Neverson pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to a three-year prison term on top of the 11 years he spent behind bars awaiting the outcome of his case.

According to the IRB, Neverson had made conflicting statements about whether he hoped to remain in Canada. He was asking to be released in 2000, after serving his sentence for manslaughter, so he could return to Trinidad and Tobago on his own. But he also admitted to having a strong connection to Canada, and his then 15-year-old daughter.

“You seem ambivalent about your interest to depart the country at this time,” an IRB adjudicator wrote in her decision dated Nov. 8, 2000. “You’re saying that you had a great opportunity to have your 15-year-old daughter three days in a row with you in a special family unit (at an immigration detention centre) just last week, and you still want to have time with her in Canada. You indicate that she is psychologically depending on you since her mother became psychologically insane and has vanished (completely). But the poor girl had her father in prison for the past ten years.”

Neverson asked the IRB for a chance to spend some time as a free man with his daughter before he was deported. His request was rejected, but he told the board he foresaw having his daughter come live with him in Trinidad and Tobago. According to a story published by La Presse in 2015, police investigating the series of home invasions cracked the case after receiving a tip that the person behind them was a foreigner who visited Canada to see his daughter and granddaughter in the Montreal area. The police somehow got a DNA sample from Neverson’s daughter and it revealed she was closely related to a robber who left DNA at the scene of one of the home invasions carried out in 2006.

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Man police allege was behind series of home invasions, including fatal one in Laval, in court this week